Radius measurement is a key area of inspection in a wide variety of applications and industries including, automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, turbine and more. Radii are commonly used to smooth corners of products. They are used to smooth the transition of a sharp edge in the same way as chamfers do. However, radius dimensions are often hard to quantify with traditional radius gauges.

The importance of radius measurement in industry

For everyday items such as mobile phones, radius control is aesthetic but critical for the quality for matching the phone casing components. In the automotive industry, engineers use design principles to develop vehicles that not only proved successful in protecting car occupants but also reduce the likelihood of injuries to pedestrians in the event of a car crash. Minimum radii on edges of panels that could come in to contact with a person need to be so that it reduces the risk of injury or fatality. Therefore radius measurement plays an important part at automotive stamping plants where the panels for the car body and door are shaped.

Radius measurements made simple yet reliable by Third Dimension

Third Dimension's GapGun is proven to inspect radii rapidly and accurately. Delivered in a rugged and portable format, GapGun is ideal for shop floor use and inline inspection.

Projecting a laser line to illuminate the surface of a feature, GapGun uses its intelligent SPC3d edge break software to first asses the profile and then break it up into surfaces such as a line, radius, line. GapGun then uses its Virtual Tools to measure the radius size, surface angles and intersection points etc. This allows engineers and quality managers the opportunity to magnify the feature in question so that they can analyse the smooth transition of the radius on a part.